


a whole lot of history (we can make some more)

by tragickenobi



Series: the finnpoe series i didn't know i was making [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Established Relationship, Force-Sensitive Finn, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, when in doubt fuck it out!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-09-30 09:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17221184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tragickenobi/pseuds/tragickenobi
Summary: finn hates deserts, so of course he's going to hate hoth.





	a whole lot of history (we can make some more)

**Author's Note:**

> well! guess who wasn't expecting to come back to this mini-universe! but i really wanted to write more finnpoe, and after several days of trying to pin down a plot, i came back to this and it stuck. enjoy!
> 
> (no, i don't have a timeline mapped out yet, somehow this takes place after tlj *and* after the intial work for this series. i'll figure it out eventually)
> 
> title from one direction's "history", i am not accepting criticism on this.

  


Finn knew he hated the desert, the heat. He wasn’t entirely expecting for that same all-encompassing _gross_ feeling to come back for a winter planet.

 

It’s primarily that it seems to be another instance of the ongoing _Universe Hating Finn’s Comfort_ saga. The Resistance fleet was never supposed to stop anywhere close to that side of the Outer Rim, but things could never prove simple enough to just go to plan. A few lucky hits from the First Order had left them significantly shaken and worse for wear. The lead ship is overcrowded as a result of several losses, and while they, theoretically, _could_ make the final push to Polis Massa, do their recovering there concurrent to the planning of their next strike-- it seems an unspoken knowledge that nobody is up for that.

 

Those 20 or so hours of drifting uncertainty go mostly unnoticed by Finn; he’s occupied effectively by taking care of those injured by the Order’s attacks. He takes a power nap somewhere in that time, so he doesn’t step foot outside the medbay for _much_ longer. By the time he does, the fleet has already adjusted course to make a rest stop at the nearest unoccupied planet. That planet just so happens to be Hoth, only several hours further.

 

“There’s a network of underground bases left over from the Rebellion’s time,” Poe later explains to Finn, who had caught up with him once the latter had been relieved for long enough to eat and sit for more than a minute. “Most of the important structural stuff should still be relatively intact, enough for us to use to get back on our feet. Two, maybe three days at most.”

 

“That’s a lot of uncertainty for a plan. And you haven’t even mentioned how going to old Rebellion bases is unquestionably obvious suicide.” Finn points out, thumb dragging over his eye to push back the urge for sleep.

 

“Yeah, we’re hoping that’s what the Order is going to think too. And by the time they make serious consideration to the fact that we might actually be crazy enough to do it, we’ll be gone. It’s a risk, but it could really pay off for us.”

 

And Finn can’t argue with that. The fleet had been moving for days by then, constantly pursued, and he can’t pretend he’s not starting to feel claustrophobic in the constant confines of a ship. If he was one of those in charge and faced with the chance to give everybody an opportunity to catch their breath, he’d take it too.

 

He comes back to that thought later, standing outside the ship in the whipping wind, looking down at the semi-buried trenches. A part of him is second guessing this.

 

The Resistance splits itself in half once the ships have landed, tucked carefully in a gully until the state of the base can be accounted for. Some go to work at unburying the north entrance, Poe and Rey among them, while others begin to ready the move of needed supplies into the base. Finn initially starts with the latter of the two, though he eventually joins up with a smaller subgroup that goes to scout the south entrances. That’s where he’s standing as he looks back over the zigzagged trenches that at one point seemed to spill out over the hillside. The cold is _biting_ , as if consciously reaching out for any piece of skin that isn’t covered. If he really thinks about it, he’s not sure what else he could exactly expect from a planet perpetually covered in snow, but this still feels like the universe’s latest shot at him.

 

You wanted everyone to catch your breath, it had posed, you get to try and figure that out wherever we throw you. Have fun with it.

 

Finn makes his way down the embankment and tugs at his jacket as if doing so will keep out any more of the snow. Though decades have passed, much of the doors that the Rebellion previous had fashioned held strong against the buildup of snow and ice. It’s through their weak points that they’re able to force them open wide enough to slip inside, not quite supplied enough to risk opening them entirely and expose themselves to whatever second hell the nights could be.

 

Still- despite his reaction to the planet itself- it doesn’t take much away from Finn’s reaction to the base. Vague, over-villainized knowledge of rebels and his brief time on D’Qar could only form a halfway-there perception of what a resistance could look like or even be capable of; the sheer size of the cave and the extent of lingering equipment dwarfs what he thought ever possible. Immediately inside from the south entrance is what had to have been the hanger- the ceilings shoot far above Finn’s head, the ground vast and empty save for spare and long abandoned generators and charging stations for X-Wings- and to be so instantly greeted with such space digs in the knife about just how small their resistance is in comparison. At their size pre-Starkiller, they might have been able to make efficient use of maybe half of it.

 

With entrances on both ends open (with Rey’s help, the north entrance had been opened much sooner and much more easily), the rest of the daylight hours are spent preparing for the night ahead. Supplies brought in, old tunnels dug out, an attempt at reviving some of the old heating systems. Finn manages to forget most of his exhaustion until some of the heat comes back into his fingers, the recovered mobility almost painful. Something deep within his back continues to ache, and he can’t tell if it’s his body remembering the last time they were this cold, what happened, or not.

 

Nightfall comes, and to nobody’s surprise, it’s cold. Exhausted from the work and probably from that bone-deep chill as well, most of the Resistance calls it good enough to pull any spot untouched with snow, take a blanket, and sleep wherever they might fit. Finn is careful to muffle the sound of his boots against the ground where he walks past them, aided only barely by the open space of the hanger.

 

He finds Poe sitting in the remains of the command center. Old pieces of support beams litter the floor; little if any of the heat has reached the room, and as a result he can see the rhythmic cloud of breath coming from both of them as he draws closer. Poe gives no outward acknowledgement of him, but none is needed. Finn silently sits beside him, joins him in staring at the empty frame where the screen of a computer once had been, before at some point shattering.

 

“I think I hate this place,” Finn finally breaks the silence with.

 

Poe, in response, simply starts to laugh. It’s quiet, either simply for the sake of quietness or out of lack of genuine humor, but it’s agreement nonetheless.

 

“It’s definitely not the best of vacation spots,” he says, still almost whispering. “It’s a lot of things, but it’s not that. For sure.”

 

Their shoulders are the most touching they’re doing, and even then it’s subconscious, required if they want to sit where they are. Finn finds a natural sort of comfort in the normalcy of it. He finally turns his head to look over at the man, after letting the silence balance back out. “What are you thinking?”

 

Poe continues to stare ahead, almost beginning to let his shoulders hunch. Upon noticing it, Finn catches sight of a small portable map being turned in Poe’s hands. “I think it feels like we’re surrounded by ghosts here. Like we caught up to an echo.”

 

He sets the map onto the table in front of them with an exhale that expels more steam than the norm. “I also think I’m exhausted, and I’m tired of thinking about how tired we both are.”

 

With the end of the thought, Poe finally cracks a smile and looks over at Finn. There, in the silence of the room that had been semi-frozen in time, Finn feels it sink in a little more the weight upon their shoulders; his, Poe’s, everyone’s. He wonders how it’s possible for something he’d been aware of for months now to hit him again like something new. But, like Poe, he decides that there’s no reason they can’t fixate on this at a later time. They’re here to take a breath, after all, regardless or even in spite of the planet being an icy ghost town.

 

Finn leans in and gently kisses him, what feels like for the first time in decades. Neither have the frame of mind to try pushing it anywhere, only just enough to allow what’s left of the heat of their lips to fizzle out, puffs of breath pushed together into one. Not much but enough to sate.

 

The two sit there for several moments longer, somewhere between sleep and consciousness as they rest against each other. If not for the imminent likelihood of freezing to death there, it’s almost a fine enough idea to stay there like that through the night. But with each their own responsibilities, they’re standing and brushing off the thin layer of frost that had begun to gather on their jackets. Poe takes the map back and slips it inside his pocket, still somewhere inside his own head, where Finn doesn’t quite think it yet his place to pull him out of.

 

Through the winding halls back to the main hangers, the two are mostly silent. Finn finds himself focusing on his feet as they crunch against the firmly-packed snow, imagining all the hundreds of footprints that had crossed over the same ground in the years before. How many others before them had felt their same fears while blizzards raged outside. Finn’s arm finds itself around Poe’s shoulders, a motion that gains him a slightly amused look in return, in part for the closeness and in part to ground his thoughts from wandering any further.

 

They fall asleep on makeshift cots, just enough to keep them off the ground, in the corner of the hanger furthest from the doors. Finn is the first of the two to wake up come morning, finding himself half-tangled in a threadbare blanket and turned against Poe’s chest. It’s still not _warm_ , but, upon testing, he no longer sees his breath as it comes, and he supposes that’s something. In typical fashion, Poe is half off the bed, half holding onto Finn in whatever way he can. It’s nice to see him look peaceful again, even as Finn slips an arm out from between them in order to pull the man back onto the bed so he can start the process of getting up himself.

 

It’s still miserable outside, and it feels like the fleet had been parked in a different hemisphere from the base entirely. Finn hates every miserable step it takes. The partial path they’d worn the day before from the constant back-and-forth had been thoroughly erased in the night, and once again it’s easy to think about all the paths he’s walked over without knowing; if not for the cave systems, he wonders what proof there would remain of the Rebellion previous. If any proof of _them_ will linger once they’re gone. He’s more than thankful when he and the other medical personnel finally reach the main ship.

 

Inside, he’s able to put aside all the weird, probably cold-induced thoughts and get back onto a more set track of responsibility and required action. Many of those injured from their most recent skirmishes with the Order had stayed on board in order to remain as warm as possible-- nobody wanted to risk adding frostbite or pneumonia or Force knew what else to anyone’s list of pre-existing injuries. Finn welcomed it if for no other reason than it gave them a chance to truly leave the cold for a few hours.

 

Many of those hours slip into blur, lost to the groove of reflex. He looks over an injured party, engages in whatever lighthearted small talk or straightforward discussion they begin, tends to what needs to be tended to, and eventually moves on to repeat the cycle again. Finn only hopes it doesn’t make him come across as disingenuous. He’s tired, a little agitated, dancing the line between tense and paranoid, but he likes to believe he keeps that on the bench when he’s working in the medbays.

 

Finn comes up for air some long time later, finds himself waiting in one of the few empty rooms for the rest of their bacta to finish defrosting in order to redistribute it. Outside of the distant whir of machinery, it’s quiet, and Finn takes a small part of refuge in it. As much as he enjoys and is good at taking care of those around him, he can only stay submerged in it for so long. He’s tired of seeing his people hurt, seeing his friends suffer. If Finn allowed himself to follow these thoughts to completion, it’s always usually to the same impatient rage he’s only allowed himself to dance close to once or twice before-- on Starkiller, to a lesser extent Crait.

 

As if called upon by the thought association, Finn hears footsteps come to a stop at the doorway. He looks up from his spot on the floor to Poe, who stands there with his thicker jacket lazily held in one hand at his side. Finn softly smiles, nods to the open box of bacta a few feet to his left in wordless explanation, and Poe nods back in understanding. The man doesn’t have a reason to be there, but it’s nice that he is.

 

Poe steps into the room and takes a seat beside him, a light chill still lingering on him from the outside when their elbows bump. Finn allows his anxious thoughts to filter themselves out, reaching to take Poe’s hand- freezing- and squeezing it.

 

“Nothing else to do?” Finn cracks a larger smile, teasing.

 

Poe chuckles, smiling back with only a fragment of the reservation he’d had the night before. “Nothing particularly useful. And I wasn’t about to join in the snow fight against Rey of all people.”

 

It’s an image that draws a quiet laugh out of Finn as well as another one out of Poe; though even if it’s not verbal or even conscious, Poe’s intentions begin to pry in. Finn has maybe all of five seconds to start drafting another sentence in his head before Poe seems to have won an internal argument with himself and leans over, softly pulling on Finn’s hand as he kisses him.

 

They’d done this the night before, and somehow it feels new every time. Finn welcomes the feeling of warmth growing outwards from his chest, almost juvenile in its intensity. Different from the night before, he’s less afraid of jostling the man, more easily bringing his other hand up and holding the back of Poe’s neck to keep him close.

 

“How are you holding up?” Finn eventually asks, by the time both his hands have come to Poe’s face, with Poe’s on Finn’s chest, both breathing significantly heavier as they separate for the first time in what feels like a long, long time.

 

Poe’s eyes slowly refocus in on Finn’s face, mouth closing as he thinks about it. After a brief pause, he ventures, “Can we raincheck that?”

 

Finn takes his own moment to think, his mind pitting rationale against desire, and he wishes he could say no to him sometime.

 

In nonverbal answer, Finn pulls Poe back into him and they fall back into their rhythm unrestrained. He will _not_ forget to come back to the man’s obvious stress, but a few more minutes devoid of complex thought will not hurt either. It takes much less mental effort to get Poe up into his lap, thoughts locked in on keeping the kiss going and going and going. Neither of them are quite warm enough to start throwing clothes off, but they make do with what they can, hands mobile as ever and reaching over whatever skin they can grasp at. Finn barely spares a second of effort on the hand motion and focus it takes to shut the door from where he sits, more out of courtesy for anyone who might happen down their corridor.

 

Poe seems to mirror Finn’s focus almost without trying, slow and deliberate with each kiss and movement. It exaggerates the warmth within Finn’s chest, fondness extending out to the fingertips pressing into the small of Poe’s back. He leaves the kiss in order to refocus his mouth on the man’s neck, biting ghosts of marks into the skin without breaking their pace. Poe exhales heavily, pulling Finn closer into him and rests his head against him.

 

Finn’s fondness grows and he clings to it in the same way he continues to cling to Poe; not desperate in the way one might correlate fear of loss with, something closer to cherishing what he knows he has. A something he knows is reciprocated.

 

They could probably spend a good many hours running in place like this, kissing and pulling each other closer and slowly winding each other up to the extent where they might as well not be doing anything at all. On a warmer planet, in a bed or in a genuine room of their own, Finn wouldn’t mind that in the slightest. But he’s still got bacta warming up just a few feet away that he needs to get moved out sometime soon, still has work to do. So eventually he pushes them on, getting his hands on Poe’s pants and working to get them off just enough to be practical.

 

Poe seems pretty focused on marking up the side of Finn’s neck, not much responding to Finn’s movements save for continuing to push up into wherever hands touch skin. Finn swallows a groan at the feeling of Poe’s thumb pressing just below his Adam’s apple, fighting the pull of pleasant distraction and pushing up off the ground just long enough to get his own pants off down to just past his thighs. When he wraps a hand around the both of them, he finally jolts a genuine noise out of Poe.

 

It’s beautiful clockwork from there. Finn has always been the quiet one between the two of them, but both men manage to keep a low constant of heavy breathing and quiet groans as Finn keeps up a moderate pace. Poe presses his forehead against Finn’s, face lightly scrunched up as he moves in sync with him, one hand balled up in a tight fist in the man’s shirt. Finn opens his eyes for a moment, capturing the look of him and keeping it for later.

 

And then within moments, they’re up and over the hill. Finn’s hand shakes in the aftermath, pressed into Poe’s neck to the degree where some sweat has actually managed to form. It takes another moment for him to lift his other hand off from around their dicks, flinching with sensitivity before resting his face against the side of Poe’s neck, waiting for his lungs to catch up with the rest of him. He can feel it when the remainder of the tension drains out from Poe’s shoulders.

 

“I’d get up off you, but I haven’t been able to feel most of my legs for the last few minutes now.” Poe speaks muffled into Finn’s cheek, eyes still shut as he snuggles in closer.

 

Finn limits his urge to laugh to a smile, tilting his head until he can catch Poe in a quick kiss. “Always something,” he chides, still grinning as he lifts himself off the ground long enough to get his pants back up. They’re both still kissing each other while they both get Poe’s pants right on his hips as well, only stopping once Finn shifts his legs and drops the man unceremoniously to the ground. It’s barely a few inches, but Poe still makes a dramatic groan and lays on his back, lazily smiling despite himself. Finn grins at him and stands, stretching out his arms before walking over to check the state of the bacta.

 

It’s a peaceful silence, something Finn can easily relax in as the fog continues to lift from his mind and movements. Pleasantly, he still feels warm.

 

From behind him, Poe’s voice comes to break the silence. “My parents were here, with the Rebellion, during- that whole everything. They were here.”

 

Finn stops what he’s doing and turns back to look at Poe. He’s still lying there, but the playfulness of before had been switched out with hard lines of thought. When Poe talks, he never sounds like he ever doubts a word of what comes out, but for possibly the first time, Finn thinks he’s minimally apprehensive.

 

He says nothing, but he nods for him to continue.

 

“Like- obviously I knew that before. I know most all of what they did and-” Poe laughs softly, looking up at the ceiling before shutting his eyes. “Hell, I’d have to be an idiot to not know that I’ve been mirroring them. I’ve been in my mom’s footsteps since I could walk in them.

 

“But it hasn’t ever felt like--” Poe struggles for a word, and Finn quietly walks back to him, taking a seat beside him.

 

“Tangible,” Finn supplies.

 

Poe nods, opening his eyes and reaching over to pat Finn’s knee in thanks. “It feels like they’re on my shoulder all the time, watching this, watching me, and it’s impossible _not_ to think about them. What they’d be doing, what I’m doing differently, wrong. And it’s not that I have a real reason to think they wouldn’t be proud of at least the effort, but- you know?”

 

Finn doesn’t. They both know he has that frustratingly empty gap where childhood should’ve been, and surrogate parental figures in this new life can’t fully fill in for that, not in the way he wants it to. He nods in affirmation regardless.

 

“So many people died trying to leave this place, just trying to escape. And we won’t know if coming back here was a smart move until we leave without the Order tailing our asses, but either way, bringing us back here when so many people- my parents- nearly lost _all of it_ trying to flee…”

 

Poe’s thumb presses into his chest, likely, Finn thinks, into the ring he keeps on his neck. It’s been there long enough to be a legitimate part of him and Finn is fully informed on it’s history; coming back to it is something Poe does almost any time he thinks back to his parents, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes not.

 

Finn reaches over and places his hand on top of Poe’s, shifting the man’s focus to him rather than the thoughts in his head. “You know they’d be proud of you for everything you’re doing. And I mean- still got a pretty good resistance going here, people are still alive and fighting. That’s more than something.”

 

Internally, Finn considers the idea of feeling the weight of history in the way Poe is. He doesn’t have memories strong enough of any place to make him feel inherently haunted by any past, certainly not the past of those who came before. Poe’s almost fear generates a similar response in him, but if he thinks about it longer, he can’t say he doesn’t want something _close_ to it. If there’s a future where in forty, fifty years, there’s no more First Order, there’s peace, and they can come back to this iceball of a planet and have the luxury to laugh about the time they’d bunkered up there in their grand fight for freedom for the galaxy, Finn would want that.

 

Poe cracks a smile, thinking about it first before sitting up to be on Finn’s level again. He looks tired, both on the surface and in that deeper way that Finn had been sensing since they’d landed on Hoth.

 

“It’s creepy here,” Finn continues, adjusting their hands so they rest on the ground between them, “but I think if we get to turn this place into a hopeful thing instead of the death symbol that it is, I think that’s something. We can create a better history to remember.”

 

And Poe continues to just smile at him for a moment, that lovestruck beaming so completely off-topic, but Finn doesn’t challenge it outside of a raised eyebrow.

 

“Considering how much you hate it here, you’re pretty good at the optimism thing,” Poe nods softly, almost to himself. He’s a little more quiet when he speaks again, only then breaking the stare and the smile. “I don’t want any more people to die here. This whole base has too many ghosts as it is.”

 

Finn agrees, scooting ever closer and pressing a shallow kiss to the side of the man’s mouth. “No dying. No dying, hate the snow, leave before anyone knew we were here.”

 

Poe keeps close enough to get another kiss, squeezing Finn’s hand before pulling back to smile to himself. “I hope it’s that easy.”

 

Sitting there on the floor of the flagship, just the two of them, Finn is hopeful.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please know that i'm currently taking writing commissions to help pay for my hrt, if you enjoy my work please consider checking that out. more info can be found on my twitter (bnwhishaw) or you can message me on tumblr at transfinnpoe <3


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